The Bird in the Cottage Nest

We gals love creating our nest, unless we don't. It's style, size, location, matters. What matters most is its coziness, warmth, and nurturing nature. My nest is a cottage. Post divorce and a return to the US, having lived in Paris for 16 years, caused me to do reconsider, all of it! What was to be important for this next phase of my life? 

Right-sizing into a home that would nurture and express the evolving new me screamed out. Questioning, asking, sharing with kindred spirits who had traveled or were traveling this road, let me know, I was not alone. It's good to know we're not alone. They were generous in their sharing.

The biggest question to consider was:
why bother? why bother to change anything?
why not just feel sorry for myself?

It was a seesaw ~
move on...don't move on
change...don't change
take responsibility...i'd rather not
it's all too hard...what if?
I waffled, whined and waivered.

Gradually with time and a lot of help, I decided! And what I decided was: I was worth, as we all are, the effort and the best I could create for myself. No matter how difficult things get, by holding the vision for ourselves, life begins to take on new meaning. 

With time and courage, we see where we've arrived. As we change, all that is around us changes. Most visually profound are our spaces, our nests, our homes. Winston Churchill's quote resonates. "We create our dwellings and afterwards our dwellings create us." or is it the other way around? jb

Jill Butler
Author of Create the Space you Deserve
Creator JillsBirds'nWords TM
www.jillbutler.com

A Slow-Down Day

What does it take to slow me down? As I never know what’s coming weather wise, it’s fun to wake up to whatever has arrived. Nature surprises. Weather, we have no conrtol over it. Isn’t that a relief. One less thing to “try” to be in control of. 

Control is over-rated. Of course, it’s an illusion. We control nothing. Life has its way and it brings what it brings, especially in the area of weather. These slow-down moments when we’re out of our routine, our efforting and struggle, are the times to be grateful. Sitting by the fire here in New England, Nature decides: breakfast on a tray, a couple of social calls, and someone else working the snow shovel. As I refuse to have either a TV or internet at home, Nature has directed me to write this morning, read, or do something outrageous like take a nap, 

go back to bed. How delicious.

Carrot, the cat, is outside. I’ll let him be the snowball sliding down the hill on all four.

So the question remains. How to look at this need to control, manage, know it all, all the time? Less media: the world won’t fall apart if we don’t know it all in the instant. Recognize that those around are anxious to tell you what’s going on including tomorrow’s weather forecast. Pay attention to the cell call that nearly drives you off the road. What we‘ve come to think of as urgent might just be impatience or importance.

The real deal is, I believe, that we are addicted to knowing, talking, sharing, filling the airwaves just not to be alone or left out. OUCH!

Let’s get a grip. Perhaps the most urgent is to know what really is urgent. We could learn to take a deep breathe, perhaps two, before acting. I think we think these urgencies are what makes life fun, fast, exciting. It makes us important, like fast cars racing around a track ....in circles. Now there’s an analogy. We like the racing, the self-importance of who we think we are when we’re in demand, on deadline, racing in circles.

Granted we all have things to do, to move, to respond to. It’s how we 'walk the walk' (or 'run the run') that’s interesting. What are we telling ourselves about our self-importance. Truth be known. Perhaps there's an emotional hole that's looking to be filled instead of being overly busy while trying to keep it all in control.

The snow has now blanketed this corner of the world, and in this moment, 

I’m happy to snuggle in for that nap. jb

Jill Butler

Author of Create the Space you Deserve.

Creator of JillSBirds’nWords TM

www.jillbutler.com

Getting Started is Always the Most Difficult

If  life just took care of itself I wouldn't have to get up in the morning and putting the coffee on, would take care of itself. It's the getting started that's always the most difficult. 

Living and life, don't get started until I do. I have to trick myself to get going in ways that feel fun. Take this blog. I've put off starting since last December. So what's the carrot that got me here? 

I thought about how much I love to write. So the trick was just write about how hard it is to start something especially when it's new.

I'm often 'accused' of having a lot to say. For starters, I write what Julia Cameron, the author of The Artist's Way, calls "morning pages".  MP's get me out of bed. Writing "morning pages" are like having a friend to complain to, a place to work out a knotty relationship, complain about the weather or the nuts and bolds of a project that's stalled. You get the idea. 

MP's are good because they don't wear out your friends who 'have' to listen, clients who don't really want to hear it, and lovers who'd rather be doing other things. 

So, getting started gets primed by my getting out on paper what's bugging me...about me.  Now I can get on with the living and this blogging thing is fun. jb 

Jill Butler

Author of Create the Space You Deserve

Creator of JillsBirds'nWords TM

www.jillbutler.com